Brent Lynam: I scaled the notorious fence twice, not realising that it could have been avoided. Not wanting to park (and pay) at Sandyhills beach, I started from the minor road running NE to the E of the hill. There is room for a couple of cars at NX906571, just past the church. I crossed the break in the fence at the top of the drive to the church and followed round the side of the meadow down to the Back Burn, which wasn't difficult to cross. It's a bit tricky then for a bit, bearing left alongside the wall and ultimately aiming for the obvious firebreak up the hillside. A faint path then veers left and right of the burn, eventually emerging onto heather moor at the top, where you meet the monster fence. No need to cross it (as I did) - just keep it to your left and follow a faint path alongside for about 750 metres and then bear off to your right for the summit cairn. Quite heathery but not too bad all in all.
Peter Malone: Bainloch Hill must rate as one hill I would like to forget. The first attempt involved taking my dogs on what looked to be an easy forest track, to be faced with a huge deer farm, caged into the forest, with notice boards displaying many rules and regulations, including NO DOGS. Next day dawned with abysmal weather for my second attempt, and having entered the deer forest I found great difficulty in finding the right cairn in rain, mist and waist-deep heather. The return was worse. Trying to follow a deer track back to the main path, I fell off a small cliff, in deep bracken, to sustain knee ligament damage, putting me out of action until September. A hill to forget.
